A Prima Songbird Mini Album

As some of you know from a previous blog post, my older daughter [DramaQueen] finished Grade 9 and is moving on to high school.  

At the end of June, we celebrated at her school with a special Farewell party...which almost seemed to morph into a Prom event! yikes!

After saying NO to a spray tan [among other beautification requests], I gave in and bought DQ a lovely new dress, high heels, a wrap and a clutch.  

To commemorate the event [aside from paying credit card bills] I made DQ a Prima mini album, which I taught as a class at The Urban Scrapbook last month.

These album covers are originally a plain white canvas with a white resist script that stands out when you colour the canvas. 

 I sprayed the canvas album covers front, back and inside with 3 Lindy's Stamp Gang mists:  Tainted Teal, Wild Honeysuckle Coral and Cactus Gold.  Then I inked the edges with some Vintage Photo Distress Ink and misted with water so it would bleed a little away from the edges.

TIP:  A little spray and a little ink goes a LONG way.  Start with small amounts and add more if you prefer darker shades.

The flowers are also sprayed with Lindy's.

Prima crystals & pearls flourish, I am Roses flowers and leaf, die cut bird and window and cheesecloth.

The bird is from a Donna Salazar Spellbinders die, cut from patterned paper and covered with Clear Rock Candy Crackle Distress paint.  Then I inked it with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

The window is cut using a Poppystamps die "Grand Madison Window", and I cut it out from the Prima album packaging instead of chipboard.  It's dry brushed with a little gesso and inked lightly with brown chalk ink.

I used these beautiful Prima papers for the album pages inside...

Songbird "Collage"

Sunrise

Zephyr

Mosaic

Lineage

Tag-It

Here are the inside pages...

Page 1

The pull-out photo (and another pic on the back)

Pages 2 and 3

Page 2 has a little flip book with more photos...

Pages 4 and 5

I made these feathers...I'll show you how at the end of this post

I will add my private journaling offline :)

Pages 6 and 7

A little lacing adds an elegant touch...

Page 8

I plan on adding a vellum envelope to the back inside cover (thanks to Pat's suggestion) and include the rest of the photos from that day.

Here is a quick tutorial on how I made the feathers...

Supplies:  Tim Holtz Tissue Wrap, Scissors, Brown ink, Glue n Seal

Fold your strip of tissue wrap to create 3 layers

Adhere the folded sections together

Cut out your feather shape

Starting at top of feather, snip inwards towards centre at 45 degree angles.

TIP:  Try to snip as narrowly as possible, without cutting off the feathery fringes.

Ink edges with Brown chalk ink or Distress Ink.

Here is the finished feather!

Whew...that was a loooong blog post!  Thanks for dropping by :)

A Very Scary Class

I'm really excited to announce that I have been invited to teach at The Great Canadian Scrapbook Carnival !

 WHEN:  September 14 and 15, 2012 
WHERE:  Sherwood Park (Millenium Place)

This is an amazing event for scrapbookers and papercrafters, so I hope you have a chance to take it in.

I'll be teaching a class on how to make a Halloween Mini Album using the amazing Graphic 45 paper collection "Happy Haunting."

A BIG thank you to Graphic 45 for sponsoring my class!  I just got an amazing package in the mail from them filled with G45 goodies :)

Not only does Graphic 45 sponsor Canadian Scrapbooker magazine, they are also sponsoring the entire Carnival event too!

Here is a sneak peek for my class...

 Click HERE for more details and to register online.

Hope to see you there!
                             

Colourful Cardstock

I find that I rarely use cardstock anymore and seem to gravitate towards patterned paper all the time.  

But our monthly staff challenge kits at The Urban Scrapbook ALWAYS have two or three sheets of cardstock in them (thanks Jan!) which forces me to try to use those solid pieces of paper in creative ways.

I decided to play with some Bazzill cardstock and papers for the August Canadian Scrapbooker Sketchy Challenge.

Here is the sketch by Jill Sarginson...

 And here is my layout...

 Yes, BoyGenius came home with a set of drums and announced he is in a band.  Does he know how to play the drums?  Nope.  But strangely, he does sound pretty good.  That's YouTube video tutorials for ya!

Here's how my mixed media layout came together.  I started out with this cheerful orange Bazzill cardstock...

...then distressed the edges with my favourite Prima Ingvild Bolme distressing tool.

 I decided to rock out and "go for the grunge"  with a stencil and some black gesso...

This is the same Crafter's Workshop stencil I used on my last layout...but this time I stenciled the stars.

There was still lots of black gesso on my stencil so I quickly turned it over and slapped it onto a blank page in my art journal...

HINT:  Use ink and your stencils to give your kids temporary tattoos!

I used Clearsnap Smooch Spritz to create these graffiti splotches and dripping effects (Cherry Ice, Black Velvet and Log Cabin)

Hold your paper upright and spray LOTS at the top of your page, allowing the excess colour to drip down to the bottom edge.

I also sprayed this Bazzill white cardstock circle with red and black Smooch Spritz...

 
Using Ranger's Glue N Seal, I adhered a torn piece of Bazzill Antique sheet music paper to the centre of the stenciled stars.  LOVE the lighter weight of this line of papers.

 To colour the music paper blue, I used Smooch Accent Ink and mixed it with water....a technique I learned from the talented Cathie Allen.

This Smooch colour is called "Azure" (please ignore my dirty stamping block)

First brush some Smooch Ink onto a clear acrylic stamping block.

Then mist with lots of water.

Now rub the colour from your block onto your paper.  I repeated this a few times for better coverage.

I also "Smooched" the Magenta chipboard guitar...

The guitar is coloured with "Wineberry" Smooch Accent Ink.

The title was a complete accident!  I had chipboard letters on a white circle I cut from Bazzill cardstock...and then decided to spray them on the white circle with Black Velvet Smooch Spritz.  I thought I'd throw away the white circle and make another circle for the title.

Well, when I dumped off the coloured chipboard "Rock Star" letters...I found I had used them as a mask and loved the effect!

Here's the original package of Magenta "Rock Star" chipboard, which has other pieces missing from other projects.

The Chili Peppers orange star logos are from the internet and are printed onto white cardstock, along with the journaling strips.

I think the journaling circle looks like a vinyl 45 record (yes, I'm THAT old!).  I wanted to use an actual CD, but thought it was too small.

My son just bought a Chili Peppers t-shirt, and that is where their circular name is from...I took a photo of the image on his black t-shirt, enlarged it on a Word doc and then printed it onto white cardstock.  

I often use smooth Bazzill cardstock to print out journaling with my computer printer.

So now I have a new love affair with cardstock!  Hmmm....you could even call me a "Bazzill Groupie."  

Rock on...and Craft on :)